Thermal characterization of polycrystalline diamond thin film heat spreaders grown on GaN HEMTs

Yan Zhou*, Rajesh Ramaneti, Julian Anaya, Svetlana Korneychuk, Joff Derluyn, Huarui Sun, James Pomeroy, Johan Verbeeck, Ken Haenen, Martin Kuball

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

119 Citations (Scopus)
742 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) was grown onto high-k dielectric passivated AlGaN/GaN-on-Si high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structures, with film thicknesses ranging from 155 to 1000 nm. Transient thermoreflectance results were combined with device thermal simulations to investigate the heat spreading benefit of the diamond layer. The observed thermal conductivity (κDia) of PCD films is one-to-two orders of magnitude lower than that of bulk PCD and exhibits a strong layer thickness dependence, which is attributed to the grain size evolution. The films exhibit a weak temperature dependence of κDia in the measured 25-225 °C range. Device simulation using the experimental κDia and thermal boundary resistance values predicts at best a 15% reduction in peak temperature when the source-drain opening of a passivated AlGaN/GaN-on-Si HEMT is overgrown with PCD.

Original languageEnglish
Article number041901
Number of pages5
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume111
Issue number4
Early online date24 Jul 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Jul 2017

Research Groups and Themes

  • CDTR

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Thermal characterization of polycrystalline diamond thin film heat spreaders grown on GaN HEMTs'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this